Although fear for his life kept him hiding in his West Bank compound, death was the last thing on Nossur Aruch's mind at the moment-unless one counted being bored to death.
His driver turned onto the road that would take him to the port of Tyre in Lebanon, twenty miles from the Israeli border. Behind, a truckload of armed guards followed suit.
"I hate this," Nossur muttered.
"Sir?"
It was his driver's voice on the speaker. Aruch had raised the partition between the front and back seats but hadn't shut off the intercom.
Reaching a lazy hand for the control panel, he powered down the smoky privacy partition. Fatang was behind the wheel, a bodyguard seated beside him.
"Are we not there yet?" Aruch complained.
"Ten minutes more, sir," Fatang said.
Aruch leaned an elbow on the handle and braced his chin in one hand as he stared outside. The scruffy white whiskers felt like steel wool against his wrinkled palm.
"He had better be there," Nossur grumbled. The message from Secretary Babcock had been cryptic. He had mentioned Aruch's conversion to the peace process several times during a number of his rambling telephone calls and insanely long letters. The unhappy decision of the people of Israel to elect a prime minister from the conservative Likud party had soured Babcock on that country's commitment to peace. Even though they had recently corrected that mistake at the ballot box, the notion that they would do so in the first place was something he had found unforgivable. Only Nossur, Babcock had said, would appreciate the gift he was bringing to the Middle East.
Aruch wasn't certain what exactly to expect. But a clandestine mission for Washington likely meant that the current American President was trying yet again to secure a positive place in future history books. Aiding the Mideast peace process would somehow help everyone forget about his numerous personal and political failings.
Thinking of the words that would be written about him by the future histories of a free Palestinian state, Aruch sighed loudly. Whatever gift the interior secretary was bringing, it wouldn't be what Nossur really wanted.
As the car drew close to the Mediterranean shore, the houses grew more densely packed. Pedestrians crowded the streets. Many women wore the traditional black robes and veils. The men sported Western-style pants and boots. Shirts were opened to the third button, revealing dark skin.
The sheer number of guns slung over sweaty backs made Aruch all the more thankful that the people couldn't see beyond the closed window of his speeding sedan.
They arrived at the port of Tyre at the appointed time.
The streets gave way to huge docking areas at the rocky coast. Flocks of awkwardly ambling gulls scattered from their speeding path. Fatang guided the car to the proper berth, slowing to a stop beneath the great looming shadow of the Radiant Grappler II.
Aruch frowned at the famous Earthpeace vessel. Even as he scanned the deck, Fatang and the other bodyguard hopped out of the car. The armed men from Aruch's personal security detail swarmed in from behind.
With shouts and threats, the soldiers quickly cleared the area of curious onlookers. Running, they returned to the car. When Nossur Aruch stepped out into the warm air, he was surrounded on all sides by a living wall. Guards crushed protectively around his rumpled form. Within the mass of human flesh, Aruch's shoulders slumped.
"Let us get this over with," he grumbled with an impatient lisp.
Amid the thunder of stomping feet, his men hustled the schlumpy PIO leader up the boarding ramp to the deck of the moored ship.
"HE'S HERE!" Bryce Babcock said urgently. "How do I look? Too casual?" He stretched his arms out wide. He'd torn the plastic off his dry-cleaned khaki outfit five minutes before. His dove-fir Earthpeace pin was affixed to his lapel.
"It rook fine," Dr. Ree Hop Doe replied. Behind his thick, Coke-bottle glasses, Doe continually winced and blinked. The natural light streaming through the bridge windows was blinding. He had stayed belowdecks for the entire trip. Many of the crew had only just seen the Asian scientist for the first time.
"How's the bomb?" Babcock asked. "Is the bomb all right?"
"Bomb issa okay, Mr. Secretary."
"You haven't armed it?"
Doe shook his head. "Not without you terr me."
"Good. Good, good. Excellent. How do I look?" After summoning Doe, Babcock had banished the rest of the crew below. The ragtag Earthpeacers would be a distraction during this momentous meeting.
Babcock peeked anxiously out the side bridge window. The familiar tingle touched his bladder. Nossur Aruch was just stepping off the gangplank. PIO soldiers quickly secured the deck as the ex-terrorist climbed the steps to the bridge.
When Doe reached for the door, Babcock let out a horrified shriek.
"You're not here to open doors," the interior secretary hissed. "We used you people as slave labor to build the railroads, for Christ's sake. Is it too much to ask for a little less polite and a little more moral-outrage-inspired rudeness?"
When the door handle rattled, Babcock's eyes went wide.
"Chop-chop, Hop Sing," he snarled, shoving the Los Alamos scientist aside. The interior secretary flung the door open grandly.
"I bring you peace," Bryce Babcock announced. Nossur Aruch was framed in the doorway, an unshaved troll in rumpled fatigues. He looked like a trick-or-treater whose Halloween costume had gone horribly awry.
"May peace be yours, as well, Mr. Secretary," Aruch responded in his lisping, almost feminine voice.
As the men exchanged handshakes, Bryce Babcock's bladder tingled with watery excitement. He shifted his weight.
"I assume, Mr. Secretary, by your message and the manner in which we meet that this is a rendezvous of secret significance?" Aruch asked Babcock as he and a few of his guards were ushered onto the bridge. The former terrorist took special note of the subservient Ree Hop Doe cowering in the corner.
"Call me Bryce," Babcock chirped. "After all. We are to be partners in peace together."
Peace, peace, peace. The man was like a broken record.
Nossur had been right. This meeting was all about the Mideast peace process. Babcock was here at the behest of the American President.
It was an insult to send someone of lower rank than the vice president or the secretary of state to meet with him. In the old days, he might have shot the interior secretary. At the very least, Nossur would have turned right around and marched out the door. But Nossur Aruch was a politician now, and politicians were not allowed to shoot people. And, lamentably, politicians never, ever walked out on foreign dignitaries. No matter how lowly their station.
Holding his more violent impulses in check, Nossur smiled politely at Bryce Babcock.
"As you wish," Aruch said, deliberately not using the idiot's name.
For a moment, Babcock just stood there. Grinning.
"I'm sorry, Nossur," he suddenly gushed. "I really am. But I just can't wait. I'm like a kid at Christmas. Sorry. Christmas is probably verboten, right? Well, whatever the Muslim gift holiday is? That's what I'm like a kid on right now."
As the lunatic babbled, he moved over to a map table. Something large had been placed on it, with a sheet draped over to obscure. Babcock grabbed a corner of the material and gave a yank. The sheet fell away, dropping to the metal floor.
"Ta-dah!" Bryce Babcock chimed. He held both hands out to one side. A game-show hostess displaying a brand-new washer-dryer set.
The falling sheet revealed a gleaming stainless-steel object. So big around was it, Arach could have taken it in a bear hug and not touched fingertips on the other side. A small pad with glowing multicolored lights was affixed to its side. A few of the small lights winked hypnotically.